The Location of the Old McEwensville Baptist Church

Monday, May 22, 1911: Never have I felt less inclined to write in this diary than I do tonight.

The old McEwensville Baptist Church probably was located somewhere on the lot that currently contains this yard and white house.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Since Grandma didn’t have much to say a hundred years ago today, I’m going to partially resolve one of the mysteries that I’ve been grappling with. Many of these mysteries are about minor things (and I keep telling myself they don’t really matter in the bigger scheme of things)—yet it’s always fun to resolve one of them.

The mystery that I’ve resolved (with Uncle Carl’s help) is the location of the old Baptist Church in McEwensville.

I think that Grandma attended the Baptist Church (see February 5 entry), but since the building was torn down many years ago I wasn’t even sure where in McEwensville the church had been located.

The Baptist Church is located near the top of the map on the lefthand side.

Uncle Carl recently loaned me a copy of an 1858 map of McEwensville that had the Baptist Church on it. The church was located on the east side of Main Street a little to the north of where the old road from Watsontown entered town. We assume that the building location on the map probably was the same in 1911.

I’ve updated the map on the Setting page to reflect the correct location.

An aside—It’s really cool how the old map lists all of the property owner’s names. Also, note how in the mid-1800s the very small streamlet that runs along the west side of the northern part of McEwensville had been dammed to provide water for a saw mill.